The last presentations of research undertaken by the ATWARM consortium were presented last week in Hillsborough, Northern Ireland. Industrial guests and academic supervisors alike were impressed with the quality of presentations and the ease with which the young researchers were able to summarise the research undertaken over the last few months.

The ATWARM management team at QUESTOR would like to take this opportunity to wish each of the 16 fellows the very best for their future careers.

As ATWARM draws closer to its finish, the fellows prepare to complete their research and submit theses.

Bartosz Ziolkowski and Monika Czugala, who carried out their ATWARM research projects at DCU under the supervision of Prof Dermot Diamond, have successfully passed their PhD vivas and are now both employed at Intel Ireland. Congratulations Bartosz & Monika.

Dr Vasilios Samaras was employed by TelLab Ltd as an experienced researcher for the ATWARM project. His contract with TelLab has been fully delivered, and Vasilios will soon start employment with the JRC in Belgium. Well done!

We wish these and all the ATWARM fellows every success - whether its starting a new role or finishing up a current fellowship.

We look forward to the final group meeting in N Ireland on 12-13th November 2013.

The competition for EU Prize for Female Innovators 2014 is open until 15th October 2013.

After a successful first edition in 2011, the European Commission has launched the second edition of the EU Prize for Women Innovators to reward three women who have developed outstanding innovations and brought them to market.

The contest is open until 15 October 2013, 5:00 pm (Brussels time) to all women who have founded or co-founded their own company and who have at some point in their career benefited from the EU's research framework programmes or the Competitiveness and Innovation framework programme.

The first prize is EUR 100,000, second prize EUR 50,000 and the third prize EUR 25,000.

With this Prize, the European Commission aims to raise awareness about the contribution, potential and importance of Women researchers to entrepreneurship and to encourage women to exploit the commercial and business opportunities offered by their research projects and become entrepreneurs.

Compete and tell your story now to inspire other women to follow in your footsteps!

QUESTOR and the ATWARM group extend their congratulations to Cecilia Fenech on the submission of her PhD thesis and accomplishment of her PhD viva (oral exam) at DCU.

Cecilia's next post as a 'Research Fellow in Renewable Energy' will see her working within the School of Applied Sciences: Department of Environmental Science and Technology: Centre for Energy and Resource Technology (CERT) at Cranfield University. Here, she will support the development of a new demonstration facility for anaerobic digestion and thermal conversion of biomass and biogenic wastes.

ATWARM fellows were joined by a group of ISGEI (International SmartOcean Graduate Enterprise Initiative) students at the final summer schhol in Dublin in June 2013.

Delegates had the opportunity to learn from experienced business people, consultants and researchers regarding development and applications of tools and techniques for water quality monitoring. Other aspects of the school discussed how to communicate with the media, careers guidance and job applications, writing grant applications. Students presented their research experiences to-date, and participated in group activities to develop a new research proposal.

Many thanks to all who contributed to the success of the Irish summer school - not least to the fantastic organisers and hosts at DCU.

The third ATWARM summer school will take place in June 2013 in Dublin, Ireland.

The event will run from 24th until 27th June, and will feature talks from industry, industrial site visits, laboratory tours - focused on the themes of water monitoring and sensor deployment, as well as quality systems.

'Water: the greatest global challenge’ (14-16th May 2013) - the ATWARM international conference - was a resounding success. All thanks to the speakers who made it an event well worth attending.

Interesting talks highlighted water challenges and opportunities in Ireland, Europe, Africa, China and Brazil. Technical talks across the 3 day conference presented research outputs and innovations for nutrient removal & recovery, removal of metals, remediation of contaminated groundwater & surface water, water monitoring and the water-energy nexus.

A particular highlight of the event was the address by Alex Attwood MLA – who endorsed the work of QUESTOR and the research being undertaken by the ATWARM consortium:

"This event demonstrates where we need to go in cross boundary research particularly on the critical issues facing our nations including water quality and management.

"Within Europe and the Island we need to cooperate and integrate our efforts on economic, environment and social issues. That need is acute in Ireland. That is why I acknowledge the great work of Questor out of Belfast working with its Irish and European partners to develop research on water management and technologies. This is where we need to go-all island, all islands all Europe cooperation.

"This research programme is funded through FP7. This makes the wider point. Dublin is miles ahead of Belfast on accessing European funds generally and FP7 in particular.

"As we approach 2014 and the start of Horizon 2020 the successor programme to FP7, we in Belfast must stretch our ambitions in the image of what has been achieved in Dublin."

This conference will look at the future global concerns for the water sector and has attracted a number of high profile speakers, both from industry, academia and government bodies. An EEN Brokerage Event will feature on the second day of the conference – providing an opportunity to arrange 1-1 business meetings. Prior registration is required at http://www.b2match.eu/atwarm2013 (before 1st May 2013)

Speakers at the conference include:

John Tierney CEO Irish Water

Robert Schröder, European Commission, DG Environment

Joe Higgins, Veolia

Martin Curley, Vice President of Intel Corporation

Richard Elelman, Netwerc H2O

Denis Gray, North Carolina State University, National Science Foundation, USA

ATWARM (Advanced Technologies for Water Resource Management) represents a collection of industry-led research projects, addressing the innovation needs of organisations in the area of water.

This conference will highlight innovations in water quality management – novel treatment techniques, advanced monitoring tools – that have been developed and demonstrated by a team of Marie Curie research Fellows under the FP7 Initial Training Network project, ATWARM.

The conference will also include a full day Brokerage Event to manage dedicated business contacts during the conference and it will take place on Day 2, Wednesday 15th May from 2pm to 5pm. The Brokerage Event is hosted by Enterprise Europe Network Ireland in co-operation with Enterprise Ireland and Invest Northern Ireland.

At the recent ATWARM networking meeting all Fellows, Supervisors and the management team discussed progress to date and looked forward to the final year of the project. All Fellow presentations showed the tremendous progress that has been made in each project and demonstrated the promise that exists for new products, servcies and research opportunities as outcomes of the ATWARM ITN. The team discussed plans for the 2013 International conference and Summer School 3 in detail and these will be promoted over the coming months. Click here to access minutes and other contetn (some restrictions)

Our second ATWARM project summer school was held in Belfast during the week beginning 23rd July. It began with 2 (rainy) days of highly interactive content as part of the UK GRAD school programme. Wednesday saw the group convene to the birthplace of the Titanic for a histroy lesson on Belfast's historic legacy of ship-building, milling and linen-making. There then follow a trip to AFBI and an insight into Northern Ireland's agricultural sector and the pressures this places on water resources. Thursday began with a trip to the Belfast industrial manufacturing site of the world's third largest aircraft manufacturer, Bombardier Aerospace. This was follow by a series of talks on technology application and groundwater contamination before the group travel to NI Water's impressive Training and Development Centre at Antrim. Friday gave a chance to reflect on individual projects and learn how to best commercialise and publicise the research outputs. Finally, the group travelled to the Lough Neagh Discovery Centre at Oxford Island to gain a greater understanding of Northern Irelands largest lake and the challenges for NIEA and River's Agency to protect our inland waterways. Thanks to all who participated. Presentations (private) and pictures are available.

The second ATWARM Summer School will be held from 23rd-27th July in Belfast. This intensive 5 day programme ensures that all fellows get out of the lab and experience real-world water challenges for industry and society. The theme for this year's event in small scale and sustainable wastewater treatment. The first two days will include a tailor made adaptation of the prestigious UK GRAD programme which will focus on researching, team-working and communication skills key to the environmental sector.

A productive ATWARM Network Meeting was held in Cranfield on 1st May 2012. Fellows gave detailed updates on the scientific progress of their project, described the dissemination/outreach activities that they have been involved in and detailed the secondments that they had planned or performed to date. The group saw the excellent wastewater pilot plant facility and were given an introduction to each of the research projects being performed there. Thanks to Dr. Raffaella Villa and her team at Cranfield School of Applied Sciences for their warm welcome and hospitality. Extra credit to fellows Francesco and Yolanda for looking after the group! The group will meet up together soon; Summer School 2 will be held in Belfast during the week beginning 23rd July.

The next ATWARM/QUESTOR meeting will be held at Cranfield University, UK on 1st and 2nd May 2012. The Tuesday will be dedicated to ATWARMactivities and run concurrently with some QUESTOR meeting content. Travel details, presentation instructions and draft agendas have been circulated by email.

Fruitful Mid-Term Review Meeting

The ATWARM consortium held a successful Mid-Term Review meeting in Belfast on 1st December 2011. All Fellows gave a presentation on their background and an update on their project progress. These presentations and the minutes from the Superviosory Board and Student Council meetings will soon be available for download from this web-site. Thanks to all participants and the EC Project Officer for a very useful and productive meeting.

The next ATWARM meeting will be held at Cranfield University, UK on the 1st-2nd May 2012 and Summer School 2 is already in planning for 23rd-27th July 2012 in Belfast.

The next QUESTOR and ATWARM meeting is planned for 29th November to 1st December 2011. All ATWARM Fellows will be expected to attend the evening meal on 29th. The 30th will be the main QUESTOR meeting presentations during which two of the Fellows will be asked to present to the QUESTOR Centre industrial members. On the 1st December we will be joined by the EC project officer to conduct the project mid-term review. Further details will be circulated closer to the date.

The first Summer School of the ATWARM Project was held at the University of Duisburg-Essen (Essen Campus) from 19th-22nd July 2011 . This was a 4 day program of presentations, site-visits and workshops. All ATWARM Fellows were present and participated in a packed agenda including trips to the Emscher Genossenschaft wastewater plants at Bottrop and Dinslaken, Schwerte (Ruhrverband), the water extraction and drinking water supply plant at Wasserwerk Hengsen, Schwerte-Geiseke plus the Ruhr river quality monitoring station in Hattingen. Water certainly was the recurrent theme with the attendees caught in some heavy rainfall! However, the Summer School was enjoyed by all and we wish to thank Michael, Stephan, Andy, Thorsten and the excellent team at IWW and UDE plus each of the fantastic speakers for their patience in dealing with our questions and for facilitating an excellent trip! Click here for more images.

The next ATWARM project meeting will be held on Thursday the 12th May 2011 at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany. We look forward to seeing all ATWARM Fellows and main supervisors there. The ATWARM meeting will be preceeded on the 10th and 11th May by the main QUESTOR meeting. This will be an excellent opportunity for the ATWARM Fellows to meet with industrial representatives and to discuss their projects. Further details including travel and accomodation information will be available soon.

The Annual ATWARM Meeting was held on 18th November 2010 and was hosted by QUESTOR in Queen's University Belfast, UK. Most of the Fellows, Supervisors and project participants were in attendance. The first meetings of the Supervisory Board and Student Research Council were held.

The Kick-off Meeting (KoM) was hosted by project coordinator, QUB, on 11th May 2010.

Despite the volcanic ash cloud threatening to make a come-back, all 7 Partners were represented at the meeting. The KoM was scheduled to coincide with the bi-annual QUESTOR meeting, enabling a number of the QUESTOR members - associated partners in the ATWARM Network - to take the opportunity to attend and hear more about the ATWARM project and its objectives. The 16 research projects that will be completed within ATWARM were presented by the project supervisors and discussed during a dynamic poster session. By the next Network meeting - in 6 months time (Nov10) - the majority of researchers will have been appointed and will have started work on their projects.